The End of Olympus
by Mr.Mangekyo.Sharingaan
Summary: The gods are...dying?


OWL FEATHERS

The feathers were starting to be a

nuisance. There was one in her

mouth, tickling the back of her

throat. She chewed at it as she

walked, grabbing it with her molars

and pulling it loose. Warm, copperpenny

blood flooded over her

tongue. There were others too,

sprouting up inside of her like a

strange cancer, worming their way

through her innards and muscle.

Before long she would be essentially

a girl-shaped, walking chicken,

constantly plucking at herself.

She reached between her lips

discreetly to take the feather out and

twist it between her fingers. The

movement wasn't subtle enough; she

caught the tilt of his head at the edge

of her vision.

"Feathers," she snapped.

"You should stop making out

with your owls."

"Shut up." Neither of them

wanted to talk about the feathers,

any more than they wanted to talk

about the way he was starting to

look thin and gaunt in places. It was

easier to ignore the afflictions than

to talk about what they meant. So

they just walked, in the same

direction that they had been walking

for three days already, under the

damned sun, in the middle of a

damned desert, looking for the last

of she who used to be called the

Mother of the Earth.

"We should stop," he said. The

distance of his voice told her he

already had.

Her legs kept moving, dark denim

hot against her knees, for another

five paces just to make a point

before she kicked at the dry sand,

flinging up dust and small stones

and probably pissing off a lizard

somewhere.

"She's here."

"How do you know?" he asked.

"I want water."

She tossed him the leather cask

without looking and listened to the

slow slosh as he drank. He threw it

back and she took a swallow, felt

another owl feather making its way

into her windpipe, a sore, fluttering

spot when the water passed over it.

The water was unpleasant too.

Lukewarm and dust flavored. She

stretched her arms and stared up into

the sun.

"It's a good thing we don't

sunburn." When they left the desert

they'd be the same shade they were

when they started, despite yards of

exposed skin. She glanced at his

jeans, his tight t-shirt, and at her own

tattooed wrists and thin black tank

top. A shadow passed overhead: a

buzzard. She snorted. "Look. He

probably thinks we're a couple of

lost rave kids. A quick meal. Won't

he be disappointed."

He turned shielded eyes to the

sky and chuckled. "Will he? I wish

we had come from a rave. Next time

you drag me to the middle of a

desert, it had better be for music and

glow sticks. Not some goddess

who's probably not even here. Give

me that disgusting water back."

"She is here. Can't you feel her?

She doesn't have the energy to

hide." She tossed the water to him

and he crouched down to rest, the

leather of water hanging loosely

down to the dirt. When he shook his

head, a cloud of dust fell out of his

close-cropped brown hair.

"I can't feel anything," he said.

"Except the blasted sun and

weariness that shouldn't be there."

She watched him. Hermes, the

god of thieves, an eternal seventeen

year old bitching like an old man. It

was almost funny. It would have

been, if they weren't both dying, and

he hadn't been so thin. The muscles

in his arms were becoming sinewy,

and his cheeks had hollows they

hadn't had before. He must've lost

five pounds just since they reached

the desert.

"You should eat something." She

knelt in the dirt beside him and took

off her pack. There was dried beef

inside and fruit.

"This is humiliating," he muttered

as she handed him the food.

"Death without glory always is.

Of course, I never thought it would

happen to us." She swallowed again,

and the pin of the feather poked her.

She took another drink of water. In

the old days, she would have been

able to wish the feather right out of

existence, to burn it up with a

thought, into nothing but a hiss and a

curl of smoke. It was still hard to

believe that this would be her end,

that it would be so quiet and slow,

her lungs filling up with feathers. It

would be like breathing through a

pillow. She wouldn't even be able to

scream.

"We should have seen it coming.

It's not as though it hasn't been

foretold and written about. The

twilight of the gods." He scraped up

a handful of dust and tossed it into

the air. He arched his brow.

"Dust in the wind. Funny."

"Everything born must die,

Athena."

"So says convention." She

pushed herself back up and squinted

into the harsh light. For as far as she

could see everything looked the

same. Cactuses cropped up in

strange little families. Tumbleweeds

rolled along on their way to

nowhere. It was flat, and barren, and

the last place she wanted to be:

dying in the middle of a desert.

She held out her hand and pulled

him up.

"Everything born must die," she

repeated. "But I sprang fully formed

from our father's head. So that

doesn't exactly count, now does it?


End file.
